Home buyers put a price on central air conditioning

Tuesday

Jul 3, 2018 at 7:41 AM

With temperatures in the 90s, central air conditioning may seem priceless this week. Zillow has tried to quantify AC's value to a home.

The real-estate service found that Columbus-area homes with air conditioning sold last year for $5,447 more than those without. (Of course, it's also possible that more-expensive homes are simply more likely to have central air conditioning, instead of AC itself causing the price difference.)

Zillow concluded that central air added a 3 percent premium to Columbus-area homes, compared with a 2.5 percent premium nationwide. The greatest premium was found in San Antonio, Texas, where buyers paid 5.8 percent more for homes with central air than homes without, followed closely by Cincinnati, where AC commanded a 5.7 percent premium.

In many cities, homes with central air sold for about the same as those without, and in Seattle, homes with AC actually sold for 1.1 percent less than those that lacked the feature.

Columbus-area homes are far more likely to have central air conditioning than homes in the rest of the nation. In central Ohio, 91.1 percent of homes that sold last year had central air, compared with 66.1 percent nationwide.

Among metropolitan areas, 8.4 percent of Seattle homes that sold last year had central air. On the top end, not surprisingly, was Las Vegas with 99.1 percent.

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